Over the last few years, I’ve been led away from my spiritual path by the business of my life. My organized religious life fell away as I focused on my children, my work, my husband’s schedule, and my home. I struggled to keep some semblance of a spiritual practice alive but failed most days.

When it came to my work, I was led astray of my desire to focus on writing and speaking about human potential, personal growth and practical spirituality (often from a Jewish perspective but pertinent to anyone). Instead, I focused on writing and speaking about writing and publishing — which did pay off; I have a traditionally published book coming out in April 2011. However, here I also found myself far from home — from my spiritual center. Previously, I’d been able to join my spiritual and professional path.

If, like me, you find yourself far from home, you have to find your way back or you will continue to feel disconnected from your Source — God and your soul. Two things happened to me recently to help me see the path back home.

First, I attended High Holy Day services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This allowed me to feel part of my spiritual community and to immerse myself in prayer — in spiritual an religious practice. This reminded me of how much I need this in my life. I came home… Sometimes we have to physically travel home to our religious or spiritual community.

Second, I received several “messages” to return to work on one of my spiritual books. I sold several copies of a short version of the book. My literary agent told me to revamp the book proposal and get it ready for January 2012. And, most recently, I stayed with a woman in New York who happened to have met the man who helped me research the book and who encouraged me to write it.

I suggest that if you feel far from home…removed from your soul and your God…on a path that doesn’t feel in synch with your inner contours…that you find a spiritual community. Then watch and listen for signs of how you can walk a path that allows you to feel a sense of soul purpose or, at least, connection to soul, each and every day in our work or daily activity.

If you can’t find the path, if you don’t know where home is, simply close your eyes and get quiet. Ask for a clear picture or a message. Then listen. Watch. Pay attention.

And remember: You are always home. Your soul is always connected to Source. Source constantly guides you. You are never on the wrong path. Every path leads to the same place. You will always arrive at your destination. Home. Simple allow yourself to see the way — take God’s hand.

I was at a Jewish renewal conference a week and a half ago…Jeez, has it already been that long since I got back?…and I don’t think a day went by that I didn’t talk to someone about a book they were writing or a book I thought they should write. Inevitably if I said, “I think you should write a book about that,” they responded, “Funny you should mention that…” and continued to tell me about an idea they had for a book.

For years I’ve wanted to write and publish or have published books on human potential, personal growth and practical spirituality from a Jewish perspective (but often pertinent to all people). Two years ago my literary agent asked me to turn my attention to books on writing and publishing. I took her advice. One of the two ideas I gave her was a book about how to blog a book. I’d simply fallen into the idea when I was placed on a panel at a conference by that same name. There were no experts on how to blog a book on the panel, so I became the expert. I started a blog one month before the conference about how to blog a book, and there I blogged a book about how to blog a book–and I finished the core of my book in six months. A few weeks ago I landed my first traditional publishing deal for that very same book and blog, How to Blog a Book.

There was a time when I might have thought this had nothing to do with my purpose. Now, I totally see that it does, and I see that God’s hand was working through  my agent’s wise advice. By helping people learn to blog their books–or write their books in any way shape or form–I help them create their dreams and tell their stories. I fulfill part of my purpose. As I succeed as in this area publishing myself, I can later turn back to those other books I wanted to write with a track record as a writer and an author, and it will be easier for me to succeed and to help people to create other things in their lives.

As life unfolds, your purpose always shines through. Watch. Listen. Pay attention. What do you do almost every day? Like me talking to people about books and stories, I see that this has become a huge part of my life over the last two years…almost more easily than the more spiritual and self-improvement based topics I felt were at the core of my purpose, the things I also feel passion about.

Helping people tell their stories is a holy task. I see that…and I’ll write more about that in my next post. For now, just know that your purpose is shining through. If you don’t see it, ask others around you if they do. It’s surely clear to someone.

That’s why we end up going for Tarot and psychic readings. We want someone else to show us the signs.

Recently I made  decision to focus more intently on my writing. Yes, I’ll continue working as an editor, but I want to do what I do best and write. I also want to finish the many books I’ve started and not finished as I’ve helped others write and publish their books.

I started thinking about a book I own, called Damn! Why Didn’t I Write That? by Marc McCutcheon. I remember reading it and feeling amazed at how many books the author had written. I felt the same way two weekends ago when I had the honor of spending two days with self-publishing guru Dan Poynter, author of How to Write Nonfiction and over 100 other books. I know I have at least 10 books in me.

Then it struck me. Two years ago at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference I won a copy of Damn! Why Didn’t I Write That? I gave it away saying, “I never win anything, and the one time I do it’s something I already own.” In retrospect, I see the sign. The subtitle on that book reads “How Ordinary People are Raking in $100,00.00 or More Writig Nonfiction Books and How You Can Too!”

And here I am two years later trying to figure out how to make money with my writing…me with my journalism degree and tons of knowledge about how to write and publish books.

The day I decided to focus on my writing, I sold one of my e-books off my website. Dan Poynter had just told me to convert my e-books into a format that would make them accessible to all e-book readers–so I could make more money with them by selling more copies. Think it was a sign?

I wasn’t sure if I should go to a bi-annual Jewish conference; I haven’t missed it in years. I turned in a proposal to teach, just as I have every two years. They accepted my proposal–early no less. A sign that I should go–despite the cost? I took it as such. And the program they asked me to teach is the subject of one  of the books I most want to write and publish. A sign? Hmmm. And I could write and self-publish the book, which exists in short form now, in time for the conference. A sign that I should work on that book? Someone contacted me recently asking if there were any updates to that book? Interesting…

I have a lot of book projects, I’ve been struggling with which one to take on first. I have an agent peddling a few, but this one I just mentioned has been tabled. Should I take it on by myself?

A friend told me how she self-published a very similar book–and sold 50,000 copies. A message to me? Maybe.

We tend to wait for big signs…God’s booming voice, lightning bolts and books falling off shelves. The signs tend to be small.

We can’t always see or feel God’s hand leading us through life, but it’s there all the same.

Do you see the signs in your life?

Interestingly enough, this year’s autumn equinox corresponded with the beginning of Sukkot, the fall harvest festival. This holiday began on September 22 at sundown. The equinox occurred at 03:09 (or 3:09 a.m.) Coordinated Universal Time on September 23, 2010, marking the official beginning of autumn season.

To add to the auspicious occasion, the harvest moon rose at sunset on the 22^nd in the United States. A harvest moon occurs when a full moon appears on the last day of summer.  This phenomenon hasn’t occurred since 1991.

Typically the lunar glow has an orange color, and the moon appears much larger in the sky.  The name comes from the ability of farmers to use the moon as a source of light while they continue their fall harvests.

I admired the moon from my car as I drove along the 280 highway from San Francisco to the Santa Cruz Mountains where I live.  Here, the moon hung huge and white and low in the sky long before the sun set. I could have driven without my headlights much of the way. In the sukkah, it felt as if God had provided a Divine light for the small booth. The moon beams came in through the gaps in the roof.

Do you ever wonder about those times when the sun is up at the same time as the sun, as if day and night have overlapped? It’s an odd time of day. It makes me wonder about the times when heaven and earth, the Divine and the human realm overlap. It’s said that just a thin film lies between us and the “other” realm and that sometimes that film, that veil can be pierced…or becomes thinner, almost nonexistent. Maybe it’s at times like last night when so many different events come together: a holiday, an equinox, a lunar event.

When an auspicious event occurs, you should stop and take note and wonder if God’s hand isn’t in that event, and if God’s hand isn’t a bit nearer, a bit easier to reach. And then reach out.

Happy Sukkot. To learn more about Sukkot, click here.

For other interesting Sukkot posts, try these:

The Symbolism of the Lulav and Why Anyone Should Consider Shaking One

Why Anyone Can and Should Participate in Sukkot’s Rituals

Season of Our Fear

Photo: Wikimedia

And I weep with her. Her pain is mine. And I can’t take this one away. Unlike a skinned knee, fever or headache, I can’t make this better. I can tell her why I think she is making the right decision and how she will eventually learn to live with it—and how hopefully she will find someone else and create an even better loving relationship—but none of this makes her feel any better.  The more she hurts, the more I hurt.

I remember her pain. I’ve felt it. I’ve lived it. It was long ago, but I remember well. I’d do anything to take it away. Yet, I wouldn’t have had her miss out on these four months, no matter how ill timed. Nor would she change that, give up that time, that experience.

So, I can only watch, listen, offer words of comfort and wisdom (knowing they help little), provide a shoulder upon which she can cry, and offer hugs when she wants them. And I can cry with her.

I can understand her anger. “I can yell at God,” she says, as she admits her anger does no good.

I wonder, too, at the seemly cruel timing of the relationship, but I must believe God has a plan. I must believe God has a reason—a positive one at that. And I hope God’s hand will reach out and comfort her in the weeks and months ahead when I cannot and her boyfriend cannot.  And may it be His will that she understand the reason for all of this sooner than later.

In the meantime, I suffer with her…a mother’s plight. And I try to help her see the positive, focus on the future, feel the excitement of all that lies ahead of her—her whole future.

At the beginning of the Jewish New Year I said I wanted to pursue my spiritual studies by attending a weekly Torah study class. However, my life, or rather my schedule, once again did not allow this to happen.

I have recently cut back on how much nonfiction book editing I am doing; I’ve hired a staff of editors to do it for me, so I can pursue my writing. Recently, though, a manuscript came across my desk that I knew was meant for me to edit. It’s a year’s worth of Torah commentaries.

Each year Jews read the whole Torah. We also read commentaries on the portions for each week. We study them. We figure out what they mean. We try to apply them to our lives. This book has a special focus on applying the teachings of each Torah portion to our lives.

This book offers me a way back into my religious and spiritual study. I wished for it. I got it…even if it means taking on the editing myself.

Have you wished for something and gotten it?

I guess the people at Southwest Airlines have decided to see it as the latter—and conveniently so for their sake and not for the sake of humans—their passengers. Tucson’s most popular airline recently added “mechanical difficulties” to the list of acts of God and other events for which the carrier will not be liable if travel is delayed.

Mechanical difficulties now appears on a list of events, including wars, riots, storms, earthquakes and other acts of God “outside of (Southwest’s) control.” Other airlines are expected to follow suit, since the industry tend to keep a certain standard in its policies. It won’t be long before they all stop taking responsibility for their mechanical failures. They’ll simply blame the fact that their planes don’t work or their mechanical staff is inadequate on God. It’s God’s fault.

Hmmm. There’s something just not right about that, don’t you think? And if this becomes a trend in the airline industry, couldn’t it become a trend everywhere? Couldn’t every industry claim their product suddenly stopped working because of an act of God? Next, the auto industry will say their recalls aren’t something for which they need to feel responsible; it was an act of God, rather than a human error, that the part failed.

Then human’s will follow that example and decide abdicate responsibility as well, claiming God is responsible for any number of mistakes and errors that happen day to day. I can see it already.

It’s so easy for us to blame God for the bad things that happen to us or in the world. And it is true that God’s hand is at plan in the world and in our lives. However, to a large extent we are co-creators with God. Like any mechanical item, we have our own hands in the machine creating the workings. If the machine doesn’t work, we must take responsibility at least to some extent.

Sometimes, however, the machine stops working because of a greater plan. Destiny is at play or there is some reason we don’t understand why that machine must fail on that day at that particular moment. That’s God’s hand.

It’s a fine line between God’s hand and man’s hand. But we can’t stop taking responsibility just so we aren’t liable, like Southwest Airlines. There’s something totally wrong about that. That’s a bad example to set or to follow.

I’m wondering, how do you manage to do that…or do you? I’d love to have some readers comment about the techniques you use so others could benefit from what you’ve learned.

For me, I talk to God a lot. I pour my heart out in prayer and then I meditate; I listen and wait to hear the Still Small Voice–the one that sounds a lot like me–speaking to me. I do this while sitting, walking, riding my bicycle, driving my car.

I also make myself trust that God’s hand exists in all that is happening. I tell myself over and over again that, even if I can’t see it, find it, understand it, a reason exists for the way life unfolds around me. I remind myself that one day I will know why things happened as they did.

And I remember that I am a co-creator with God here on Earth. My thoughts are creative, as are my actions. I can manifest things by by being, thinking, feeling, doing, giving, and receiving. This is kabbalistic conscious creation, or the law of attraction at it best. Using all of these steps, I can tune in to God and tap into the Divine flow. That helps me understand and have faith in all that happens in my life and in the world–both good and bad.

How about you? How do you regain lost faith or simply continue to have faith each day?

For me, this day feels quite personal. My family is quite small because of the Holocaust. My mother, her sister and her parents escaped Czechoslovakia and went to Israel. One or two other relatives went to Peru. That’s it. (My father was already in Israel with his mother.) Everyone else was killed by the Nazis.

My mother’s grandmother gave her a ring just before the train left Prague for Trieste, Italy. She handed it to her through the window. My mother never saw her again. I now wear that ring.

My mother took me to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem when it still had a room with six million black tiles and an eternal flame for every concentration camp. She told me who in her family died in each of the camps. I’m still moved to tears when I think about that day.

Since the Holocaust, my mother no longer believes in God. She, like many Jews, suffers from what I call the real Shoah. Shoah means catastrophe. Yes, it’s a catastrophe that so many people died during the Holocaust, but to me the greater catastrophe lies in the fact that so many Jews lost faith in God.

Some say many Jews had already lost faith in God. So, the fact that Jews were being killed in gas chambers and burned or shot and buried in mass graves simply confirmed what they already believed: God did not exist. If he did, he wouldn’t have let such a thing happen to his Chosen People.

Only the faithful…those observant Jews who retained a strong belief in God…remained faithful throughout and after the Holocaust. Their belief in God and their faith was sorely tested, but it kept them going. It gave them hope. It gave life meaning despite the meaningless death they saw around them.

Their faith allowed them to believe that God’s hand must be in their lives in some way, shape or form. They might not see it or understand the events around them, but they had faith that one day they might understand.

Today, like the less observant Jews during the and after the Holocaust, many people suffer from a shoah of faith. We saw this after 9/11, for example. Most American’s could not grasp why God would let this terrorist act happen.

However, everyday people suffer crisis of faith. I have seen it in those closest to me. Falling into debt, death of loved ones, loss of jobs, feeling burned out make them feel hopeless. Then they get angry at God. They think God is doing this “to them.”

After they are done feeling like the victim, they decide God doesn’t exist. “If there is a God,” they say, “why would he allow such things to happen. Why doesn’t he hear my prayers? Why doesn’t he see the good things I do and reward me?”

Like the Jews during the Holocaust, however, they don’t really believe any longer in Divine retribution.

They also can’t see beyond the moment. They don’t believe anything happens for a reason…at least not the terrible things happening to them. “What reason could there be for those things to happen?” they ask.

They can’t see that the loss of the job they hated allows them to find a new one they enjoy. They can’t see that their spending habits or choices about where to live allowed them to get into debt; they are not being victimized. They can’t see that their unresolved issues with their dead loved ones cause them to feel depressed.

They lose faith. And then they cycle downward. Things get worse. Their life, their work, has no meaning. They experience a shoah of faith.

As Rabbi Wayne Dosick says, “The way to faith is through faith. The way to faith is though doing faith.” We must, “Do faith,” he says.

How do we do faith? Just as the Jews swore, “Never Forget,” we never forget…God. We place God before us always. Shiviti Adonai l’negde tamid (I place God before me always). We pray ceaselessly, as Jesus taught. We look for the signs of God’s hand in our lives…both in the good and in what we judge as bad.

And we try to look backward with 20-20 vision. As a Jew, I can look back and say that possibly without the Holocaust my people might never have mustered the energy to create the state of Israel. They might never have changed their mentality…their nature…so that they would say, “Never again…never again will we let such a thing happen.”

Someone else might say, “If I hadn’t have lost that job, I wouldn’t have gotten out of the terrible situation I hated and changed careers….or found a new job…or moved.”

We must learn to do faith, to have faith, to see God’s hand in our lives, indeed, to see and feel God every day…no matter what happens in our lives and in the world. Without that, indeed, we are alone in a meaningless world.

And that is a shoah….a catastrophe.

Thus, I ask myself: What will I sacrifice to create positive change in my life?

I must sacrifice some sleep! There never seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done, so when I think about doing the work I want to do in the world and on myself to create change, I fear I will have to sacrifice sleep. (I am willing, however, to entertain the thought that I can create change in my life that allows for me to do all I want and need to do and still sleep 7-8 hours per night! I’d like to create that positive change in my life…truly!)

I might also have to sacrifice being at home as much. I might have to go out into the world more. I won’t be able to be a hermit. Neither will I be able to remain a bud; I’ll have to bloom for all the world to see.

I’m actually struggling as I write this with the idea of sacrifice. Once I got past the sleep part and wanting to change that thought, I decided that I’d rather have the thought that nothing had to be sacrificed to create positive change. Sacrifice carries such a negative connotation. I’d like to create change in my life in an easy and effortless manner.

The next question I ask myself is: What am I sacrificing in my life that I don’t want to be sacrificing?

This seems easier to answer. I don’t want to sacrifice sleep! I don’t want to sacrifice time away from my family or the things I enjoy doing.

Currently, I feel I am struggling to create change in my life—to become successful, to become more intuitive, to pursue a spiritual path, to improve my relationships—and each time I add something into my life, something gets sacrificed. I feel I’ve actually sacrificed a lot.

By putting so much time into my family, I’ve sacrificed my own pursuits—spirituality, metaphysics, personal growth, horseback riding, cycling, etc. This means I haven’t created the change I wanted personally and I’ve eliminated activities I love from my life.  By focusing so much on doing what it takes to be a successful writer (promotion, marketing, etc.), I’ve sacrificed my writing and not finished the projects I started and in which I believed. In the process, I sacrificed some success as a writer. By focusing on earning a living rather than on fulfilling my life’s purpose, I have sacrificed a fulfilling career about which I feel passionate—and I’ve achieved less success.

Zeroa means “arm” in Hebrew, representing God’s “mighty hand and outstretched arm” that freed the Israelites’ from slavery. As I think about zeroa, therefore, I also ask myself: How do I see God’s hand at play in my life?

Ah….I see God’s hand at play in my life constantly. I see God’s hand in my life when an opportunity comes my way; I look back at my life and can understand with hindsight how events have brought me to this moment; a fortune cookie offers me the perfect fortune; a find myself in the right place at the right time; life seems to flow perfectly; words appear on paper magically; I find a flower blooming in my garden despite the fact I’ve left it untended; I see a rainbow when I feel hopeless; a hear good news; and oh, so many other times. I am constantly striving to see God’s hand in my life…and to reach out to hold it.

Again…your turn to answer the questions.

To read all the Passover questions I’ve posed, please visit this column and this one. You don’t have to be Jewish to answer them either; they pertain to anyone and everyone.